Francisco Flores

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Alternative Title:
Francisco Guillermo Flores Pérez

Francisco Flores, (Francisco Guillermo Flores Pérez), Salvadoran politician (born Oct. 17, 1959, Santa Ana, El Sal.—died Jan. 30, 2016, San Salvador, El Sal.), served as president (1999–2004) of El Salvador but was from November 2014 under house arrest awaiting trial on charges of having diverted money donated by Taiwan for survivors of the 2001 earthquake to enrich both himself and his political party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). He was educated in the U.S. and Britain and began his political career in 1989 as a vice minister in the government of Salvadoran Pres. Alfredo Cristiani. Flores was elected in 1994 to the National Assembly and was chosen in 1997 as president of that body. When he took office as president of El Salvador, he was the youngest chief executive in the Western Hemisphere. Although initially he was considered a moderate within the far-right ARENA, he came to be regarded as an authoritarian and arrogant leader. Flores was credited with modernizing and improving the country’s economy, but his 2000 decision to replace the colón with the U.S. dollar as the country’s currency was deeply unpopular. In addition to the 2001 earthquake, in which more than 1,200 people died, El Salvador suffered a persistent drought during much of Flores’s administration, and those events reversed many economic gains credited to Flores. In addition, he was unsuccessful in decreasing violence in the country.